George Willis

George Willis

NFL

New LT documentary bares family’s anguish

Lawrence Taylor admitted to a confidant that he was nervous heading into a Manhattan screening this week of “LT: Life and Times,” the documentary that airs Friday at 8 p.m. on Showtime.

To have one’s life played out on the big screen is understandably nerve-racking, especially for someone who was a Hall of Fame football player on the field with the Giants, but also a reckless cocaine addict into retirement and now a registered sex offender stemming from a 2010 charge of statutory rape.

Unfortunately, the documentary spends so much time on the latter, its lasting images are of an aging football hero who failed miserably as a father and husband.

“It was like a roller coaster for me,” Taylor said minutes after the emotional screening ended. “I was just waiting for you all to get off the bad [stuff]. It went on forever.”

Yes, it did, to the point where Linda Taylor, who was married to the Giants linebacker during his playing days, emerges as the most captivating personality of the documentary. Her candid reflections on raising her children with an absentee father stripped Taylor of the Superman persona he had on the field. Taylor’s children added to the commentary, revealing their father was never around for their most memorable moments.

Former teammates Harry Carson, Phil Simms, Carl Banks, George Martin and coach Bill Parcells, along with various media members and friends, discuss how concerned they were when Taylor was living life on the edge. Some of it was tough for Taylor to hear.

“Watching the film and reflecting back on it, to see yourself through other people’s eyes is very, very humbling,” Taylor said. “I never knew my kids felt that way or family members felt that way or teammates felt that way. It just puts another perspective on what you’ve done or how you’ve lived your life.”

Produced and directed by Pete Radovich and narrated by Jon Bon Jovi, the film does pay homage to Taylor’s football career: the way he changed the position of outside linebacker by playing as a pass-rushing monster, his ability to play through pain, his relationship with Parcells and his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But most of the football clips are familiar— “Let’s go play like a bunch of crazed dogs” — including Taylor breaking Joe Theismann’s leg on Monday Night Football.

The film brilliantly flows around the wedding of one of Taylor’s daughter, the only one of his children whose birth he witnessed.

“I was there for her birth and her wedding and missed everything in between,” a contrite Taylor says in the film before walking his daughter down the aisle.

In the end, we learn little about Taylor that we did not already know. One revelation is his 1988 suspension for a positive drug test came from urine that he substituted for his own. He was a great football player and a substance abuser. It’s the pain his family endured that resonates most in the film.

An apology was all Taylor could offer.

“You might say I live my live pretty good,” he said. “But to see your life through the eyes of others … that’s hard to handle. I really apologize to the people if I harmed them in any way, especially my kids. It was very, very humbling.”

Taylor, 54, says he lives a sober life now in Florida. His only vices are his love of golf and an ever-present cigar after doctors told him to stop drinking.

“As I reflect on a lot of things that happened in my life, I think time has done me well and helped center me,” Taylor said. “Luckily, right now I have good friends, I have a good family, I’m going in positive direction.”